Among the men reading this blog, many are combat veterans who come from the ranks of those who invaded Cambodia by helicopter when Nixon's Secret War went viral in 1970. Super Scout is a story about one of those men.
His name was Jim Rohrer and he was my instructor pilot, hootch mate, mentor, card partner and friend. Jim died of cancer and fought that battle with the same bravery that he had for everything he fought for or against. In the ranks of the 11th Armored Cav, his name is legend.
If there ever was a pilot who had the "look", he was that pilot. He had a large, blonde handlebar mustache and when he was flying combat missions, he always wore a tan colored scarf around his neck just like the fighter pilots did in the First World War when the days of open cockpits were common place.
He was so well respected that he was chosen over all the men in the Air Cav Troop, to accompany Dan Combs home when Dan and Blick were shot down and killed in December of 1970.
When I was finished with my job of bringing the Nighthawk Gunship mission to the Huey Pilots in the Air Cav Troop, I transferred to the Scout Platoon to fly the Hughes OH 6. Jim was the instructor there and filled the assignment / slot of instructing Huey pilots in their transition to the Hughes. He not only instructed in the flying portion of the transition, he taught us how to fly, scout and survive.
A few days ago, Mike Olinger posted a newspaper article about Jim that was made during the war. It is now located in the historical document section of the site. With all the editorials that have been posted on the Air Cav site, that article seemed to haunt me.
Voices from the past told me to post the story of a mission that he and I were involved in almost 20 years after our tour of duty in Vietnam was finished. I decided to do that as I think it is not only an honor to put this in writing for Jim but it is also a perfect fit for the posts that have been made about the Character of men. The following confession is the story of Jim Rohrer's continued service and Patriotism for the Country he loved so much.
One day, not long after Tim Jr and I moved back to Shreveport from 13 years of living in Alexandria, Louisiana, I found a letter in my mailbox. The envelope that arrived in the mail had the red, white and blue border that so many of us used for letters coming from Vietnam to the USA. It immediately caught my attention and was the first one I grabbed. The letter was Jim.
It came from the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City, Guatemala where Jim was stationed. He'd been working there for the the Dept of Defense as a civilian. The letter contained a job offer to "Paint Cars". I wondered in the hell Jim was doing and what the car painting reference really meant.
I contacted Jim and found that his reference to car painting had a more sinister meaning. I guess I have to be a bit vague about it but will simply ask you to use your imagination when you consider what car painting really meant.
In short form, cars and trucks that belonged to certain individuals were "electronically marked from the air". It was done so to provide an "electronic signature" on top of the car that could be detected by any number of aerial surveillance assets as the vehicles moved around the country. Even though I had read articles about pilots spraying Paraquot (sp) on marijuana plants that were growing in Mexico and areas in South America, I had a sense that there were other bits of information missing. When Jim asked me to pick up a ticket at the Dallas airport and fly down to the Guatemala City, I knew something was missing.
I told him that I had continued to fly and had owned a Cessna 206 and a Piper Seneca II that I used to travel Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. I explained that the only helicopter flight I'd made was one between Alexandria and Little Rock in 1984 when I was test flying a Bell Jet Ranger for purchase.
He told me not to worry about my "ticket" and that we had plenty of time for recurrency training before the real work began. That's when the rest of the story began to unfold. As it turned out, I would be painting cars but I would also be involved in something that was far more intresting than that.
Many of you might remember when the democratically elected President Aristide of Haiti was overthrown by a military dictatorship run by Raoul Cedras. I may have mispelled the names as I'm recalling this from memory so you'll have to give me another mulligan for that one.
In any event, Cedras had caused a great deal of concern because of his socialist or communist thought processes. He was located too close to a Russian influenced Cuba, and to add insult to injury, Haiti, with the Domiincan Republic next door, was simply too close to the USA for comfort.
To further complicate the situation that unfolded from the overthrow of Aristide, some treaty or situation with Jamaica prevented us from conducting operations from there. As if that wasn't bad enough, Aristide had escaped death and run to the United States where he began his plea for help from the U.N. With that, and all the world wide attention that the story was gaining, the plot began to unfold.
Something had to be done and it was going to take covert operations to do it. The Russian Navy had a tremendous amount of assets in the area. The Atlantic Ocean, close to Cuba, and The Carribean, close to Haiti, was full of Russian subs.
I'm certain that satellite intel was only a part of the total picture of concern that reached beyond the fact that we knew the submarines were all over the place. There was no way in hell that we could get a fleet in there for an invasion without Cedras knowing all about it.
As it turned out, we were going to train in Guatemala for a month or so while negotiations were underway to return Aristide to Haiti. Most of that training would take place at a small dirt strip adjacent to Puerto Barrios which was a little spot close to the shores of the Carribean. If you look it up on the map, you may get a picture of what was about to unfold.
I'd never seen an OH6 with an in-flight refueling probe sticking out of the front of the helicopter and I never even knew those existed. You may well imagine the thoughts that ran through my head when I calculated the distance from Puerto Barrios and Haiti.
I'm running out of space here and I am forced to put a second page together to complete the story. Despite that, if you would, stop a moment and think about the kind of bravery that men like Jim possessed and connect that to the character that founded a commitment to his Country. I hate I have to make this a two part post but that's just the nature of the beast. I hope that breaking it up like that doesn't degrade the focus of honoring Jim's patriotism. I miss him alot.
More to come. Tim
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